Druid Stag Travel Form
Druids got a new default travel form in this week's patch, the Stag! In the future you will be able to carry someone else on your back: Glyph of the Stag.

Some Non-Capture Pets Becoming Rare Quality
Keep in mind that you can capture rare pets fairly easily, so these changes will bring old pets into a usable state.

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We made the call to convert a number of non-capture pets into rare quality pets. We made this decision for a couple reasons. First off, we know that many folks are going to want to use some of their current pets in pet battles. We don't want players to feel like these pets are weaker than the others. At the same time, we don't want to make every single non-capture pet into a rare.

We decided which pets to change based on how difficult they are to obtain. This approach makes sense since it means that more time was put into getting these particular pets than other ones. This fits in with how you obtain a rare through the pet battle system; more time to seek out pets and fight them, hoping for a rare.

We know that we are not going to be able to please everyone, but this list is just a start and I'm sure we will make many updates between now and launch. Look it over and feel free to leave us your feedback. Thanks!

Brilliant Kaliri

Celestial Dragon

Feral Vermling

Jade Tentacle

Kirin Tor Familiar

Little Fawn

Nuts

Stinker

Clockwork Gnome

Crawling Claw

Fossilized Hatchling

Pterrodax Hatchling

Voodoo Figurine

Murkimus

Core Hound Pup

Cenarion Hatchling

Gryphon Hatchling

Guardian Cub

Lil' K.T.

Lil' Ragnaros

Lil' XT

Moonkin Hatchling

Pandaren Monk

Soul of the Aspects

Wind Rider Cub

Deathy

Grunty

Murkablo

Murky

Fetish Shaman

Frosty

Lil' Deathwing

Lucky Quilen Cub

Lurky

Mini Thor

Netherwhelp

Panda Cub

Darkmoon Balloon

Darkmoon Cub

Darkmoon Monkey

Darkmoon Tonk

Darkmoon Turtle

Darkmoon Zeppelin

Azure Whelpling

Crimson Whelpling

Dark Whelpling

Emerald Whelpling

Firefly

Fox Kit

Gundrak Hatchling

Hyacinth Macaw

Razzashi Hatchling

Sprite Darter Hatchling

Phoenix Hatchling

Chuck

Giant Sewer Rat

Magical Crawdad

Muckbreath

Snarly

Strand Crawler

Toothy

Dark Phoenix Hatchling

Elementium Geode

Crimson Lasher

Hyjal Bear Cub

Searing Scorhling

Panther Cub

Pebble

Disguisting Oozeling

Mr. Grubbs

Tiny Shale Spider

Bananas

Dragon Kite

Ethereal Soul-Trader

Eye of the Legion

Gregarious Grell

Hippogryph Hatchling

Landro's Lichling

Landro's Lil' XT

Nightsaber Cub

Purple puffer

Rocket Chicken

Sand Scarab

Spectral Tiger Cub

Tuskarr Kite

Lumpy

Baby Blizzard Bear

Onyxian Whelpling

Lucky

Mini Tyrael

Beta Class Balance Analysis

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Now given the current model with my gearing on beta its 60k ap at vengeance cap so that's about a 64k shield at 20 rage this model came with the understand that it was also nearly double at about 40-45 rage and 250 percent at 60 rage usage.
The formula mentioned earlier was for a maximum (60 rage) Frenzied Regeneration or Shield Barrier.

I'm still worried with the new change that FR will not be used as often as it once was before. I understand the 2500% of AP formula was a little overpowered but this new formula is only SLIGHTLY buffing what was previously supplied. My main problem is the fact that low level Frenzied regen is just not providing that much healing when you compare it to your total health. At top end Heroic DS level gear, the heal will only provide ~10% of our total health. At heroic 90 dungeon level gear your looking at 10-12% of the total health. Even if you estimate 60,000 Vengence AP and 500k health, you are only looking at 13% of the total health. Is it your intent to have FR that low in comparison to the total health? I can see it being useful at 15% to 20% but 10 just seems low even in top-end current content.
We’re making another adjustment to this in a future build: It uses that formula, or 2.5x your Stamina, whichever is higher.

We’re making another adjustment to this in a future build: It uses that formula, or 2.5x your Stamina, whichever is higher.
I am quoting myself here, but this mechanic for Frenzied Regen also applies to Shield Barrier to make sure the floor isn't too low. The 3000 Shield Barriers some of you are talking about would be more like 30,000 with this change. As I said earlier, we want those abilities to be good abilities, but we couldn't make them scale linearly with attack power without them being too good with bad gear or too bad with good gear.

General Question: Have there been any changes in DoT mechanics in Mists, compared with Cataclysm? More specifically, how additional ticks are added with additional haste, and how recasting a dot while it's already up (which currently allows the next tick of the current dot then starts the new dot from that point)?
Nothing has changed in this regard, other than the few rolling periodic type spells we mentioned earlier. However, the benefit of this functionality (being able to clip the last tick with no loss) has been extended to a few additional spells. These spells have been turned into periodics, despite not really doing anything periodically, so that you can take advantage of this same ability to clip the last couple seconds with no loss. Inquisition, Haunt, Revealing Strike, Envenom, and Savage Roar work this way. For example, Savage Roar uses a 3 sec periodic tick rate under the hood, so that if it normally lasts 18 sec, and you recast it after 17 sec, it will have 19sec remaining. Total of 36 sec for two casts of it, despite clipping it by 1 sec. We hope this is a nice little quality of life change (and should obviously have no downside).

Ghost, I can't recall if you mentioned or wrote about this during the Cataclysm Beta (in which case, my apologies for asking again), but: Could you please explain the logic behind Death Knight diseases not benefitting from Haste?
In general, caster dots tick faster from haste but melee dots don't. We want the haste stat to let you "do more stuff." Haste already lets melee do more stuff because it brings them more resources, which in turn lets them do more stuff. DK runes regen faster with haste. Warriors earn more rage from more frequent auto-attacks. Ret paladins have the Sanctity of Battle passive to let them also "do more stuff" with haste.

If we ever needed to make haste more beneficial for melee, we'd consider it, but that's the general logic.

Death Knight (Forums)Changing the ghoul to have that behavior will make macroing "Claw" into all of our abilities mandatory, much the same way the Blood Tap macro was nearly mandatory. Why not just make Gnaw and Leap free?

Also, regarding Unholy's AoE rotation, is it intended for Unholy DKs to have orphaned Frost runes? Currently when we do our normal AoE rotation, we can Scourge Strike and Blood Boil...but the left over Frost rune either goes unused or we use Icy Touch.

Would it be possible to have Blood Boil attached to Reaping? Or have a cost change to 1 Blood/1 Frost rune, with a damage increase as well (100% more damage for Unholy?) Having to use Icy Touch to fill out our rotation does not feel like it is intended at all.
Why would that change require you to macro Claw into your abilities? Blood Boil is on Reaping in a future build.

What is the formula for Rune Strike? The datamined tooltip from Wowhead says 140% weapon damage + 10% of AP. The in-game tooltip suggests 140% weapon damage + 14% of AP. This second value seems closer to the reality, but it still doesn't really adds up to the numbers we're seeing when fighting. It seems to be very slightly higher in reality.
We’ve changed the formula for it to be 155% of weapon damage, but normalized (the fact that it wasn’t normalized before was a bug), in a future build.

Soul Reaper, when used as Blood spec, is not refunding its rune if parried. I'm not sure about dodges or misses, or about Soul Reaper (Frost) or Soul Reaper (Unholy).
Fixed for a future build. All versions of Soul Reaper should refund its rune if it misses, consistently with other rune attacks.

Scourge Strike's tooltip is incorrect. It states that it deals 18% additional Shadow damage per disease, but the reality in-game is that it deals 25% additional Shadow damage per disease (before any bonus through the Dreadblade mastery). What version should we use for our simulations?
It's 25%. We can update the tooltip.

The tooltips for Blood Plague and Frost Fever seem incorrect as well, and the reality damage values differ from the in-game tooltips in our spellbook. This is a very minor difference (talking about two-number digits), but a clarification would still be appreciated.
Fixed.

Reaping - Whenever you hit with Blood Strike, Pestilence, or Festering Strike, or Blood Boil, the Runes spent will become Death Runes when they activate. Currently this change doesn't work as I imagine it's intended because of a long standing bug involving Death Runes. When an ability that triggers Reaping is used the rune that is made into a Death Rune is based the cost of that ability, not the rune used to pay for it.
This is "mostly" fixed for a future build. I say "mostly," because there’s still one exception. It won’t work on runes that you couldn’t normally make Death runes by your spec (e.g., you made them Death Runes using Blood Tap or Plague Leech). This is because if you managed to convert your Blood runes to Death runes as a Blood DK, you’d end up able to use all 6 runes on Death Strike, endlessly. Similar issue with Unholy and Blood Boil.

Hunter (Forums)BM hunters also have a similar issue with their pets outside of raids. Special attacks that require focus (i.e., Horn Toss, Froststorm Breath, Burrow Attack) never go off (unless you spec Fervor or have Rapid Fire up) because our pets are very focus starved. You have to manually turn off their basic attack (Smack/Bite/Claw) to cast those specials. Any chance of upping pet focus regen or removing/reducing (or pooling) focus cost for those specials?
We reduced the cost of those specials to 20 focus, so the autocast will use them. Having it pool focus on the basic attacks would be problematic as it would cross over the 50 focus limit where it does 100% more damage for 120% more focus.

I am curious as to what happened with the Thrill of the Hunt talent for Hunters.
That build was taken in the middle of making some changes to Thrill of the Hunt. Internally, it’s currently 3 Arcane Shots or Multi-Shots at -20 focus cost, but that’s looking too strong, so we might change it to 2, or even something else, by the time that change gets in a build to you.

On the subject of the effect formerly known as wild hunt, when I last tested this effect on beta (quite awhile ago at this point), it was doing 120% more damage for 100% more focus. This is consistent with how it works on live, although the tooltip stated (and still does) that it does 100% more damage for 120% more focus.
Actually, this was a bug. It had been intended to be a way to bleed off excess focus at a reduced efficiency (similar to Heroic Strike for warriors). However, it was actually acting as a *more* efficient way to convert focus to damage, which was a bug. This unintended functionality has the downside that it encourages you to only use Claw above 50 focus, to maximize damage; autocast won’t do that, so you have to do it manually. So, after discussing this a bit, we see 3 viable solutions:

A) "Fix" the bug, making it less efficient above 50.
B) Change autocast logic to only autocast above 50, and preserve the "more-efficient-above-50" functionality.
C) Change it to simply be 2x damage for 2x cost.

Option A, while the originally intended functionality, would feel punitive at this point, so we’re leaning away from that. Option B might cause your pet to waste significant focus when she gets surges of focus, such as from Focus Fire or Go for the Throat, and hits the focus cap. So, we’re leaning toward Option C, since there wasn’t really much engaging gameplay from this anyway, and this just allows it to be an overflow valve for excess focus.

Mage (Forums)It looks as if the damage of Pyroblast is so much higher than Fireball that a Fire Mage can theoretically drop Fireball from rotation; the higher DPET if Pyroblast almost exactly balances the reduced number of Hot Streaks:
Hot Streak will increase Pyroblast’s damage by 25%, and Pyroblast’s normal damage has been reduced by 20% in a future build.

Is Frost being a competitive PvE spec possible, or am I getting my hopes up a little too soon?
While I hate to say something like “No, really, we mean it this time!”, yes, we’re trying very hard this expansion to get Frost equally PvE viable with Arcane and Fire. We’re aiming for Arcane and Fire being as PvP viable as Frost is, too. We added the recent ramping mechanic because we were worried about Frost's damage being too good in both PvE and PvP.

Paladin (Forums)It's not like Ret or Prot needed damage nerfs, either.
You're going to be see a lot of number tweaking from here on out. If you think any of the changes are off base, I'm afraid you're going to have to offer a little more evidence to support your claim, or else this forum is going to be reduced to "don't nerf me, bro" posts.

Ret was doing too much damage. Prot's damage is fine even with the change, and to answer a related question, that is assuming spending some Holy Power on Word of Glory.

There's already enough proof and parses out there showings rets damage is barely middle of the pack on the beta currently. I really wish we could see gregs proof or parses whatever you wish to call it and really see ret paladin numbers.
If you have proof or parses, please share them here.

We welcome and appreciate player feedback, and the discussions in this thread and elsewhere have been excellent in pointing out design problems or bugs. However, we aren't going to get ourselves into a situation where we have to convince the community to allow us to make the design or balance changes we feel are appropriate for the game. We don't think that would end well. Sadly, if you think our numbers are off, the burden is going to be on you to convince us of that fact. We show Retribution in ilevel 463 gear doing almost identical damage to warriors and DKs, which is as it should be.

Shaman (Forums)Are there any plans of restoring Greater Healing Wave at all to the Resto Shaman toolkit? I haven't seen any acknowledgement from the developers of this issue thus far.

Currently Healing Surge without Tidal Waves is barely less HPM than Greater Healing Wave, but with the availability of Tidal Waves, Healing Surge soars past it. Due to the massive HPS gains of Healing Surge and the nearly imperceptible difference of HPM outside of Tidal Waves, Greater Healing Wave becomes practically obsolete except for the occasional Natures Swiftness if you chose the talent.
We are talking about reducing the cost of Greater Healing Wave slightly to match Healing Surge (which is how the equivalents are for priests). This may mean that shaman can heal efficiently with Healing Surge (with Tidal Waves) but we think that might be fine for them. GHW would still get use because sometimes the Healing Surge just isn't sufficient to keep someone alive. Healers also tend to migrate from their efficient heal to their big heal in later tiers, which we're fine with. It makes it feel like all those gear improvements are doing something.

Warlock (Forums)Simulationcraft #'s are up for all 3 Warlock Specs @ Level 90 (Pre-raid gear)
We aren’t able to debug your simulations, but will say that those very much do not reflect the numbers we’re seeing. We’re seeing Destruction slightly above Demonology (1-3% difference) on a single target, and Affliction slightly (3-5% difference) above Destruction. Those are gaps that we expect to tune tighter by ship. I’m not sure if your simulation of Affliction/Demonology is too high, or if your simulation of Destruction is too low, or if our results are off. Providing statistically significant logs of these performances would be very helpful.

Warrior (Forums)Warriors and Barbarian's FuryRage isn't something you manage, like energy or mana, its something you build up until you're ready to unleash its power onto your enemies...
So less like energy or mana and more like... combo points?

I'm not just being snarky. I think it's a legitimate point. If you have yellow attacks that produce X rage and then a finisher that consumes Y rage, then you have a system that works fundamentally a lot like combo points or Holy Power. Ultimately we know that system works, but I'm not sure that means that every class should use it. It's a little deflating when you switch characters only to discover that the resource mechanic feels almost the same.

I actually think we're pretty close on the rage design for Mists and that what some of you are reacting to isn't the mechanic as a whole but the current numbers on beta. By moving some rage generation to yellow attacks we have given warriors and bears more control over building up their resource rather than it being totally passive. By reducing some of the exponential scaling of the resource model with gear, we think we have broken the cycle of warriors who are weak at launch and overpowered by an expansion's end. Recently, we felt like rage generation was too high in starting gear, which wasn't giving warriors too much room to grow. We lowered it, but that ended up feeling too punishing at low level, so we're trying to strike a balance.

These aren't the kinds of decisions that can easily be mathed out, because so much of it comes down to the *feel* of combat, which we can only get a handle on by trying different designs and playing them ourselves, and asking other players (like you guys) to try them as well. Blizzard is famous, perhaps infamous, for design iteration. You sort of have to stand back and let us do our jobs here. We need to be able to adjust things in beta without the community freaking out every time a number goes down (and I'm not just talking to warriors here). I totally understand that beta design can feel like a roller coaster, which is one of the reasons we try to limit design churn after launch. It's totally fine -- and in fact we welcome it -- to provide feedback along the way. Helpful feedback is the sort of thing several warriors did when they said they felt like rage generation from white attacks was too low and rage generation during Enrage was too high. It's a little disappointing to read "rage generation feels low now, therefore the entire system must be scrapped."

I could wax philosophical about the similarities and differences between warrior rage and barbarian fury; indeed the strengths and weaknesses of various resource systems is something the WoW designers discuss frequently with the Diablo designers. Just remember that the combat situations are very different. D3 is about very short fights against huge groups of enemies when you are often alone or in a small group. Even if you have a tank, you don't really have a healer. Except for the boss fights, the fights are unscripted and unpredictable. I'm jealous of the combat situations the D3 designers can put you in, because there is room for a lot of different AE attacks and survival buttons and movement abilities. On the other hand, because the fights are short, there isn't a lot of opportunity for the rotations and situational abilities that the WoW classes have and I've always enjoyed the emphasis on the synergy of large groups of players in WoW (whether it's a raid or a BG or just a guild hanging out in chat). It's actually a little refreshing both as a player and a designer that they do feel so different (to me anyway). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Challenge Mode FeedbackI see the blue post in this thread says something about mass resurrection. However you should also consider the possibility of a group with a shaman or a combat res for that matter. You can train through the entire dungeon towards a safe spot and have a combat res on one person that then resses everyone else. I doubt I have to explain shamans ability to do the same.
Casting single-target resurrection spells to recover from an intentional wipe takes quite a while when you're aiming for a new best time, such that doing so to clear debuffs like Sated is unlikely to be a net gain. As for suiciding to skip mob packs, the intent is for the "Enemies" counter for a given challenge mode to force you to engage most of the enemies in your path. Skipping patrols and sneaking past things using clever tactics is fine, but if you use a suicide or mass-stealth approach to bypass content, you should come up short on the counter.

Philosophically, we want to try to permit the use of all player abilities in challenge modes. The restriction on Mass Resurrection is different, because guild perks were always intended to be conveniences and not competitive advantages; in a challenge mode where time is everything, however, saving up to 40 seconds on wipe recovery was a clear advantage. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Content Difficulty and Consumption SpeedPersonally I'd like you to explain why (for example) things like: the title "Hand of A'dal" doesn't exist anymore, or why the LK HC mount no longer has 100% droprate, or why the old ZG/ZA mounts are unobtainable etc when you argue that "everyone should be able to experience the same content" yet you still hand out the same reward for other vastly different content (0% vs 30% nerfed DS).
These things you mention (Hand of A'dal and Invincible's Reins) were changed when the next expansion was released. It's a different timeframe. Players could get the mount from the Lich King at the 100% droprate while the 30% buff was active in ICC, in that regard, it's the same thing with Deathwing these days.

And I'd argue that DS is not "vastly different" with a 30% debuff on. It might be much easier for you on those bosses where you didn't need that in the first place (or required something much lower), and that may allow you to do crazy things, sure, but it's still the very same place, and challenging, to other players that will need to go through the same issues you had when you were clearing that content.

The point is, when you do something while its at it's hardest you want something to show for it. You do not want "Wolfstabzor the worgen rogue in BoE PvP gear" (as someone humorously used) to have the exact same thing to show for it a few weeks after, when it was 30% easier.
It's not a "few weeks after". It's close to half a year later, which is something that needs to be put into perspective. Which by internet time measures must be like five centuries later. It doesn't mean your point isn't valid, but I do think time is a factor that it's not being properly valued, and that's a question I've yet to see an answer about. What's so terrible about a player getting something you did, half a year later?

But seeing that random pugs can kill THE HARDEST BOSS IN THE GAME AVAILABLE (on HC) doesn't make much sense to me.
Are you saying that random pugs can kill Deathwing on Heroic? Or am I reading this wrong?

Don't reply to our posts and tell us we have no argument, or twist around what we're trying to say because a lot of us aren't the best at communicating. Be honest and tell it how it is.
I've never said you don't have a point in what you say (and if it looked that way, I certainly didn't mean it, at all). What I'm seeing, however, is that in many of these arguments, the fact that other players might do something you've done is something negative, yet when I'm asking why those players shouldn't do these things, the answer tends to be very vague, or something demeaning those players.

I like raiding. I like challenge. but why would I take a challenging route when its faster to do it the easy way? It's why I dont like LFR.
So you like challenge, but you wouldn't take the challenging route? I'm honestly missing something there, because otherwise the only possible conclusion is that in fact, you don't really like/enjoy that level of challenge, which doesn't seem to be, at all, the message you're trying to get through.

Well, based on your answers in this thread, what worries me is that the feedback you're sending back is "these guys want to be special snowflakes" and going on about exclusivity when many of us have been trying to explain that's not what we're talking about.
If that was my view on the subject, I would have stopped posting on this thread long ago.

"Others experiencing the same content" is something I'm okay with. What I'm NOT okay with is that in the end, the hardcore players will be indistinguishable from the casual players. If everyone can or rather WILL get the same gold medal in the end if they want it, then the effort is pointless in the long run.
Achievements have the date on when you achieved it. Basically, time is a big factor there. Even if a million guilds killed Heroic Deathwing, would suddenly mean that those guilds are as good as Paragon, Stars, etc? Obviously not. That would be insane to even consider by most accounts, right?.

Yet, apparently it is a consideration when some guild does achieve it later than you did (despite noone daring to say they're as good as Paragon because they killed HC Deathwing two weeks after, at least not anyone that is considered a "sane" player).

Is your worth as a raider valued by what others achieve, or what you, by yourself, achieve?
Prestige is not doing something anyone else can't do, prestige is doing something better than anyone else and being recognized as a consequence.

You need players in this game that can be looked up to, and these players should also be looked up to, respected and rewarded by you
We "need" players that can and should be looked up to? Why exactly? What does such a player bring to the game and the rest of the community?

And I'm talking about in-game stuff, not about players out there that do amazing work on fansites in the form of guides, blog articles, videos, machinimas, etc (and in some cases those players aren't even in "top raiding guilds").

I've heard this mystical argument for quite some time now, saying that hardcore raiders actually drive playerbases (not just in this game). And the truth is that over the years, many hardcore raiders (and "well-known guilds") have left the game... and the community at large didn't even knew who they were in the first place. Sure, there were other hardcore raiders that knew who they were and were sorry about it.

That's the first time in 7 years that I clear a tier of content on week one (I've always been playing with the same people in these 7 years, so, if the group has not changed, the contest has become easier).
Doesn't it make sense that, if you've been playing with the same people in these 7 years, you've actually got better at the game? The luxury of playing 7 years with the same players is that things like coordination actually happen as something "natural", and hurdles that are actual issues for other players, you can overcome much quicker.

Perhaps you don't even need to ask who's using a cooldown at a given moment because you already know who in the raid is going to take care of it. That on itself is something that many other raids don't have. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Problems with Cataclysm1) The entire low level experience - which could have been great with the new quests - is spoiled by insanely powerful heritage gear. It ruins dungeons, which are already too easy by turning them into a pathetic zergfest, and destroys PvP by allowing 30% of the players to 3shot the other 70%.
As people point out regularly, heirloom gear is entirely optional. You have to put time and effort into purchasing it. It’s intended to make things a little quicker for players who have already seen end game on at least one character and would like a quicker leveling experience, allowing them to see end game on another character a little sooner.

Not everyone has heirlooms; many low level dungeon groups have some players without them. If you’d like more of a challenge in instances, try running ones that are aimed at slightly higher levels than your character, or make groups with less than 5 members perhaps. For the ultimate test, why not try soloing them?

Low-level PvP is challenging due to several factors. At the end of the day, heirlooms are equivalent to blue quality items. In many situations, it’s possible to find or craft similar non-heirloom gear, although admittedly it’s harder to do so. But having heirlooms available to you is a plus-side of having an end-game character help your low level one, something that’s always been a benefit.

2) Gear inflation in PvP is still ridiculous. S(n+1)-geared people nomatch S(n)-geared people, turning random BGs into "who-has-the-highest-amount-of-undergeared-gets-camped", and forcing people who haven't played all previous seasons of the expansion to spend months getting raped in BGs / Arenas before they can actually start playing the game.
There have been a number of changes to make it easier for people to jump into PvP quicker and gear up faster, while at the same time not invalidating the efforts of people who have put lots of work into getting the best gear. But ultimately, PvP is what you make it, and good gear is not a replacement for skill. Those who win at PvP were in blues too at some stage, they worked at gearing up just like everyone else. Try teaming up with friends, getting organised and focusing on strategies to make the path easier.

3) World PvP has been low for quite a while, it still existed though when there were Dungeon Stones and people actually had to move to some places to do stuff. Now, it's dead, you consume the content from Orgri/SW with your bottom on your dragon, flying around like an idiot with hundreds of shiny mounts around doing the same thing.
One of our aims in Mists is to get people back out into the world again. We’ve heard from players time and time again that the world outside the city gates feels empty and that’s another reason we’re implementing the cross-realm zones. In Mists, you’ll see more players out and about in the world when you’re traveling from A to B — which you should be doing more often thanks to some of the new features in the expansion.

4) There is no RvR. Tol Barad is just another BG, you get TP'd to it and it has a limited duration. The alliance/horde conflict, which is quite great through low levels zones, means nothing in end-game content. BGs are more like some kind of FPS, you're blue team or red team but you don't give a crap. Anyway, you can just switch factions for a few dollars.
The war between the Alliance and the Horde is also something we’re getting back to in Mists. For instance if the Horde were, say, planning something nasty for Theramore, the Alliance may want to do something about that. If I were you, I’d be sharpening my weapons. Things are about to heat up.

5) The *dungeon finder* farmfest. It boggles my mind how someone who is supposed to get paid may have believed that people would actually enjoy that stuff. Sitting on your mount in Stormwind, the fastest - the only viable - way of gearing up is rushing a hundred times through heroics and raids that are so easy that only 3/5 or 15/25 people could do it without an issue. And you get the best gear available.
I was really shocked when I discovered the LFR tools, only a few days ago. I played as a healer, and not only were the fights insanely boring, with almost nothing to heal, but they were also crazy long. It felt like bringing down some fat passive NPC with 100000000 HP and then looting it.
Actually, LFD and LFR have been very popular tools. When time is short, being able to queue for a quick dungeon while going about other things such as gathering or doing daily quests is very useful. Again, it’s not mandatory and you’re still able to manually form groups with friends, even cross-realm now.

In regards to the difficulty level of encounters, well we’re at the end of an expansion and most people have had ample time to gear up well past the entry level gear requirements for these instances, of course it’s going to seem easier now if you have people in the group with such high-end gear.

6) The stupidity of PvE progression. Instead of simply leaving the great vanilla/TBC system, where you dinged 70, then had to go through normal to get access to heroics, then heroics to get enough gear for raids, then Kara, then T4, then T5, then T6 etc. and where you felt like you had a huge path ahead of you, and the content felt so immensely rich, they decided it would be a smart move to flush all previous content down the drain every new patch.

I skipped Firelands, so I'll never get to see it. I didn't do all BWD/BoT, I'll never get to do it. Oh of course, I can zerg through it with ilvl410-geared guys who will oneshot trashmobs. But there's already LFR for that kind of stuff.

The "we want everyone to see the whole content" is the stupidest thing I've heard from a video game company in a while. Does Bethesda rush-teleport me into every single god damn cavern in Skyrim because if they don't I might not take the time to clean them all ?
I wonder if there is like 1 madman who has a prominent position in their dev teams and has all these dumb ideas, or if they actually - as a whole - are bad enough at their jobs to think it's going to work.
The old way of progression meant the majority of players never got to see the last boss in an expansion, and we wanted to change that. Not only is it counter-productive for us to put out these exciting, epic encounters that only a fraction of the players will ever see while they’re current, it also leaves many players with a feeling that they missed out on the end-game.

The system we have right now means that those who are at the cutting edge of raiding will still get to progress through all the raids in the order they become available, they’ll have the best gear before anyone else, and all the other fun things that come with being a hard core player. Anyone, like yourself, who skips content because perhaps they joined the game later or didn’t have the time required for this kind of progression doesn’t have to do all the encounters if they don’t want to — but the option is definitely still there if they want to see the story. It totally depends on how you want to play the game. This way, people aren’t forced to grind through non-current content (and often fail to make it to the end before the next expansion) to be able to see the end of the game.

Also, comparing two completely different types of games is bad, please don’t.

7) Last but not least, the uniformization (does that word even exist in english ? Might be.).
Classes, races, factions, professions...
Everything is being mirrored to everything. You no longer need a priest for that buff, or a hunter for that debuff. 3 classes can do the same stuff. Choices are cosmetic, at the end of the day you won't need to have the balanced groups of specs / classes you needed back in the old days, which is for me the essence of an MMORPG.
“Back in the old days”, if you played a Paladin, you were pretty much forced to heal in raids because other classes did DPS and Tanking better. Obviously lots of players were miffed about that sort of thing. We made changes over time to make other specs for each class more viable for not only raiding, but for other aspects of the game.

Having said that, the developers actively work hard to make sure we don’t see all classes ending up exactly the same, while trying to ensure different specs and classes are valuable in their own right, each having something to add to a group and making sure one character’s ability is not vastly more useful or overpowered than someone else’s.

1: If you're in LFD and you're not in heirlooms. You run the risk of being called a "noob" anyway (even if you are genuinely new to the game and of course cannot get heirlooms).

2: If you join one much higher than your level as you suggest, and are not in heirlooms. That categorically will not work. Because all the other members will be higher level AND in heirlooms. They will think you're even more of a "noob" for joining such a high level instance in "noob" gear (as I'm sure they'll say).
I actually play low levels a lot because I enjoy levelling. Personally, I can honestly say that I regularly see low level players in greens and blues during instances, and I don't think I have ever seen someone picked on purely for not having heirlooms.

If everyone is getting on with the instance and there are no huge problems, surely it's unlikely others will start inspecting people and picking fault with their lack of looms?

You completely missed the point. It's not about the choice you have about whether you have heirlooms or not. It's that everybody else does have them, and the enemy won't care if you do. There's no point in entering a battleground in your quest greens when you can't even pop a heirloomed priest's bubble. Again, battlegrounds are a team versus another team. You may have a point in dungeons, because it's a cooperative effort. Battlegrounds, on the other hand, are competitive. You don't get carried by helpful teammates, you get a trip to the graveyard. Being a dead weight on your team is really frustrating.
And I think you missed my point too — that there have always been players with better gear, having an 'advantage' over their opponents in that regard, heirlooms aren't the only way to have it.

If you go into a BG in greens, you can only expect to get your proverbial rear handed back to you on a plate if you go up against an equally skilled player in blues. Those who go out of their way to gear well for BGs and are skilled will generally do better than undergeared players of a similar skill, obviously. Before looms, players searched for good twink gear to give the same effect.

It's not as level a playing field as you make out.
Nope, I never made that out. As I said in my original post, low-level PvP is challenging due to several factors, and heirlooms are definitely one of them.

With the relatively easy availability of heirlooms as you highlighted, opposed to the item hunt for twinks, these days you have to going into low level BGs knowing that these people will be there. Just as you have to go into level 85 BGs in your crafted blue PvP set when you're just starting out, knowing there'll be organised teams on voice chat with the best Arena gear waiting for you.

Sure it's tough going up against this at first, but as you get better and gear up, the satisfaction you get when the tables start to turn is worth it IMO.

I'm not dismissing your feelings on this by the way, and please do continue putting your points forward. I'm just saying I think that this situation has always been there in some shape or form.

What Is your opinion in turning heirlooms into a scroll with a buff to XP gain on it? That way there is still the advantage you say heirlooms were meant to give without being stupidly OP?
What benefit would be available to people who prefer to play PvP? What could they have instead of the XP scroll, which to them would be useless?

What really amazes me is the high amount of posts of blizzard in this post. Simply saying 'you're wrong, WoW is fun, you're just playing it wrong'.
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm offering another viewpoint, often my own personal one, as a player of WoW myself. It's unfortunate that, just because my text is blue, some people immediately dismiss my opinion as biased. Anyway, threads like this are often goldmines for some excellent feedback, providing some great points on how we might think about steering things for the better. I've seen several great arguments already.

You compare heirloom characters to twinks. As you know, the decision Blizzard made about Twinks was made "to get them out of regular BGs"... so, if one of them was taken out "for the greater good"...why isn't the other group? Double standards much?
Players that elected to turn off XP gain purely to excel in PvP were moved to their own BGs, yes. I don't think you can throw in players in heirlooms though. They level up alongside everyone else in the regular BGs, so they also have a point where they find themselves at the lower end of a bracket and perhaps aren't going to do so well against players of a higher level. I'm not saying they'll be trashed by people in greens, refer to my earlier comment about gearing up for BGs, but if they meet people in similar gear, they won't have an easy time.

Are you OK with the fact that new players, or old players in new servers, will have a permanent and significant gear disadvantage against heirloomed players? I will remind you that gear is a very important factor in how much you contribute to your team (and in consequence, the fun you have), perhaps even more than skill due to class imbalance.
But it's likely that, on average, the team you face will have a similar number of people in heirlooms, blues and/or greens isn't it? In which case, your team has an equal chance of winning regardless.

Overall for the team, it's fair. But, the same "loomed" players (on both sides) will be bashing the normal geared players (on both sides) on the head every time you get a few yards into the front line. Over and over again. Many players will be thinking they're playing the game wrong. Never realising they never stood a chance against such gear mismatch.
Maybe "many players" is a bit of an overstatement. We all know the feeling of stepping into PvP for the first time and meeting a brick wall of opposition. It didn't stop people (me) from playing though. I think we tend to figure out that our opponents are more seasoned, better equipped players than we are, and to maybe put some research into improving first before throwing in the towel.

I'm fine with the existance of LFR and LFD, however, I'm not fine with the fact that you have more incentives to do those than to do the dungeons the old fashioned way. At the very least you could make it so that if you give the time to run to the dungeon with a group of people you invited you would get the same reward in terms of valor, justice, gold and goodie bags as those who chose to use the tool to teleport into them. The ones using the LFD tool would still have access to faster dungeons (since they have the random dungeon buff, as well as not needing to search for members) and those who wanted to do it the other way would still feel like they are not loosing up on rewards.

You don't need to make one better than the other in terms of rewards, just make them equal. (Although i wouldn't mind if you got an extra 10% valor/justice/gold if you went into a dungeon without using the LFD tool, not too much so it wouldn't feel mandatory)
Okay, good points, thanks for the feedback.

Of course we do. Blizzard blues are a charade. They never post anything that's actually useful, and when they do, it's to defend random 2/3 casuals posting in a thread because they want to keep them subscribed. Don't say retarded stuff like that.
So we only post "to defend random 2/3 casuals" to "keep them subscribed" at the cost of annoying everyone else in the thread who then presumably won't continue to subscribe? Hmm... There's a flaw in that logic.

I agree about the heirlooms part . my opinion is that they shouldn't exist for PvP ; for PvE there great , nothing wrong with getting through the content easier and faster. PvP is a whole other case. New players are at a disadvantage and it's not fair. Let's face it, random BGs are a whole lot more about personal satisfaction team play. No one has any satisfaction if you team wins but you get owned by the opposing team .
Alright, again, thanks for the continued constructive discussion.

I agree with the poster, the game is boring atm. I enjoyed world pvp, but there are no world pvp at all and guards are too overpowered.
Well hopefully you will feel less bored when Mists of Pandaria is out, because there is a heavy focus on PvP in this expansion... world-PvP in particular is getting some attention. Also, the guards on PvP realms will be nerfed, which should hopefully serve as an encouragement as well.

There is no new content for a year almost, its too long and the content is outdated.
I hardly think it will be that long, but we shall see.

J/k, but there is a point in there. Don't refute worries now with content that's not out and has to be bought please.
It was never my intent to refute worries, so my apologies if it came across like that. I was merely trying to acknowledge said worries and reassure that we are trying to address the concerns people have currently in regards to PvP, and world-PvP in particular.

With all due respect, we're going on Q3 of a year now. So unless MoP launches in 3 months, I do think we'll be going on a year.
I think there may be a misunderstanding at play here, as what I meant to say was that I hardly think it will take that long from now until Mists of Pandaria will be released. If you look at the time that has passed since the latest content patch, then of course we are looking at a longer time interval.

But his point was no content, and again you tell him to buy a new game. Somehow this rubs me a tad the wrong way. We're paying now too.
I get what the point is, and I acknowledge it. I am also perfectly aware that it is a point shared by several of you guys.

Also I am not telling anyone to buy anything if they do not want to, I'm telling people that we are trying to address PvP concerns in the new expansion we are working on. Once the expansion is released, some of the new PvP systems and content will be accessible to everyone regardless if they purchase the expansion or not, but it is no secret that you will need the expansion if you want access to all of the new content. This by the way is no different from how new systems and content have been introduced with previous expansions, and yet there are still plenty of people who play the game without some or even any of the expansions. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mists of Pandaria Collector's EditionI saw the MoP collectors edition mount and pet and I want to know if the collectors edition willl be released the same date as the normal game and if it doesnt have the same release when will it be released?
The Collector's Editions we have shipped out in the past where released at the same time as the normal game, and I am fairly certain this will be the same with this release. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mounts and DisguisesWhy can I not mount up when I'm disguised? Why aren't every disguises, which are, just like pets and mounts, PURELY COSMETICS, not shared among every characters on your account?
I'm not an artist so I can't be completely certain, but when it comes to the Ogre Idol it could be due to clipping and size issues. I'll try to find out more.

In regards to sharing pets and other rare objects, to my mind it's a little similar to the transmogrification of legendaries argument. Some of these things are damn hard to get, so when you see one in use, it's special. If suddenly these rare items were appearing a lot more often, they'd lose some of their awe quality. Don't you think it would be a shame if suddenly these relatively rare things became quite common to see? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

World PvP and Dismounting Flying PlayersThey are still working on it, they haven't figured out how it should be working exactly.
This pretty much.

Right now we are looking into the possibility of adding one or more items that can dismount players, however this may change if we find a better way to do it. This is obviously something we want to be very careful about... it has to be done right.

Won't this be pretty pointless on PvE servers?...

I don't think that's an issue. It will probably not work on pve servers against someone not flagged for pvp.

That is the general idea. Players on PvE realms should not be forced into PvP if they don't want to PvP... No mercy on PvP realms though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Trinkets in PvP
I will just jump in here and say that is an excellent post Daisyx, I can see that this must have taken you a lot of time and effort to construct. As you can see in the difference between season 11 and 12, we have already begun adding additional stats to the PvP trinkets. This will hopefully begin making them more appealing comparatively to the PvE trinkets.

Actually the only ''design'' I want to limit are:
1. No more ''damage on proc'' trinkets
2. No more ''haste on use or on proc trinkets''
Understandable, however as has already been pointed out, a lot of people find these trinket procs fun and would find it quite saddening to see them go. What's your feedback for alternative procs that could replace these?

I believe that my solution of a an on use resilience buff would be desirable in PvP, good for the game and have little negative side effects. It increases the skill cap, it could counter some of the burst and it would make the game slower.
I personally like this, it is something that would help protect you from burst and if it instead was an on use that added both PvP power and defense it could be instead used to either counter burst or be utilised to create your own :O Would create some great optional choice to the trinket on how it can be used.

You can make damage trinkets apply a dot, and they should have a chance to be activated when cc is cast.
This I am not so much a fan of. On top of what was already said by Daisyx, DoTcleave teams or similar using this (This is all thinking theoretical) would have an additional DoT that they can apply across your whole team, which could be a large sum of additional damage.

TL;DR: Buff PvP trinkets to reduce the power of PvE trinkets. This would eliminate the PvE trinket problem for the most part. There are tons of design choices when it comes to PvP trinkets, some of which would improve or change game play. A trinket that would improve the gameplay: On-Use Hand Of Sacrifice trinket.
I understand why you say this, and bringing PvP trinkets to the level of PvE ones would indeed combat the issue raised here...but I see a flaw. The matter that is being brought up in this thread is that certain PvE trinkets cause imbalance in arena, if you were to bring the PvP ones to that level would that not also cause an imbalance?

The thought of your Hand of Sacrifice trinket is aiming at finding a middle ground, which is nice, but I am not sure if this particular effect would be appealing to many players. It would be interesting to see how an on-use effect such as this would play out in PvP though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Number of Quests in Mists of Pandaria
As things are right now, it looks like there will be approximately 1300 quests in Mists of Pandaria. This is a very rough number though, and this is of course still subject to change.

There is some overlap between Alliance and Horde, but the majority of these quests are neutral and because of this we do not expect there to be more than 200 or so faction-specific quests.

Of these 1300 quests, roughly 300 of them are dailies.

Right this moment we don't have the numbers off-hand to show how that that compares exactly to the previous expansions, but the quest count seems to more closely mirror Wrath of the Lich King, however with a much greater emphasis on dailies. Mists of Pandaria is actually the expansion where we have emphasized dailies the most... ever!

The dailies are of course randomized, which means that you will never log in and find that you have 300 daily quests to do. We expect that if a player has progressed sufficiently with the neutral factions, and thus advanced to their maximum possible quest availability, you would have around 48 quests available on any given day. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Paladin (Forums)Protection Paladin Damage Low
I have only seen a few numbers in this thread, and they all dealt with Crusader Strike damage, which is a rather small part of paladin damage on the whole. Is the issue that you just like big Crusader Strikes? Our goal has been to deliver more of an impact with Avenger's Shield and Shield of the Righteous. If every attack hits for about the same amount, then attacks don't feel different.

If you have actual evidence that Protection paladin damage is lower than other tanks or lower than it is on live, please share it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Pet Battle Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Catching Uncommon and Rare Pets: Feats of Strength?Is there any particular reason these are feats of strength instead of actual achievements? Catching an uncommon is ridiculously easy, and while finding a rare is more difficult, it's hardly so impossible that if deserves to be a feat of strength - especially if there are multiple achievements for progressively more rares caught!
The rare and uncommon achievements are not feats, this was just a data error. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Pet Battle HealingWhy is the revive/heal pet on a 10 minute timer? With that being the only method of healing pets in the field, you're either forced to fight a lot battles that are way under level and not much of a challenge, or shuttle back and forth to a Stable Master to heal up after every wild battle.
The cooldown on the heal is easily tweakable. We picked 15m as a starting point and so far, we are pretty happy with it.

We just added Pet Battle Bandages to the Sack of Pet Supplies for both the one-shot Master quests and the Grand Master dailies. They stack up to x5 so that is always another option if you take part in the questline.

Stable Masters are a last resort. The design intent is not for you to go back to them after every fight. As a few others pointed out, you can find pets that heal your team in battle as well. Most players should be able to do a solid number of fights before you even need to use your heal, much less go to a Stable Master. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Pet Battle QuestsI haven't had a single pet battle quest since Stranglethorn. After there more?
There are quite a few bugs in the quest chain that is currently on beta. Most of these should be cleaned up in our next build. (Soon!) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Pet Phasing Problems?I've started coming across instances where pets in a concentrated area suddenly just don't exist at all.
We have a fix for this coming in the next build. You will not see pets across zone borders that are not actually available to you. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hoping for some clarificationDo the pet collection achievements still reward pets? Specifically, will I still be able to obtain a Celestial Dragon pet during MoP?
We have updated the chain of collection achievements with two new entries at 250 and 400. Both of these entries have new, unique pet rewards with custom idle animations. (Feral Vermling and the Jade Tentacle)

In addition, we will now count pets caught via the Pet Battle system towards these achievements. Keep in mind that the pets caught must be unique, we won't count catching the same pet twice. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Sack of Pet Supplies Needs More Supplies!
Roger that. We will be adding some stuff to spice the bag up.

Trap Upgrades
The trap upgrades are implemented. Higher level traps have a better chance of catching pets with lower miss rates. (we will be adding more detailed into to the trap tooltips shortly)

You should notice a new icon and new trap art in the actual battles. If you are not seeing this, let us know! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Pet Battles Updates 7/18

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We will be listing out upcoming changes to the Pet Battles system in this post. Most changes will be coming in the next push but we will hotfix whatever we can.

Pet Abilites

Healing Flame cooldown increased to 3 rounds.

Apocalypse is being increased to a 15 round ability.

Moonlight will be reduced to 50% bonus healing next push.

Humanoid passive will get a review. (We intend to max how many times it can proc in a round)

Moonlight healing reduced to +50%.

Cauterize cooldown increased to 3 rounds.

Powerball now applies a dummy aura to indicate your speed increase.

New Ability for the Terrible Turnip: Sons of the Living Root – summons 6 turnips who deal damage while you are underground.

Ability tooltips now show red or green damage numbers that indicate the total calculated strong or weak damage on the current target.

System

Reduced the scaling factor between quality levels by roughly 50%.

Stat gains per level have been reduced by roughly 20%.

We are in the process of converting a number of non-captureable pets to rares. Currently, all of the non-captureable pets are uncommon. The more difficult it is to obtain the pet, the more likely we will convert it to a rare.

Pet items are being fixed to work with captured pets. (leashes, biscuits etc.)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session or cancel it entirely, due to bugs, builds, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

Message from Mike Morhaime to Diablo III Players
In case you missed the big news this morning, Mike Morhaime wrote a letter to the players of Diablo III. Below are four key points that we will be seeing in future patches. However it is strongly suggested that you read the full thing for yourself.

(1.0.4) "will also include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably won’t be expecting."

(1.0.4) " this update will contain changes designed to further deliver on the team’s goal of promoting “build diversity,” with buffs to many rarely used, underpowered class abilities."

(1.1) This patch will also build on the social and auction house changes (Talked about in the article)

(End-Game) "We’re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the “item hunt.” We’re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we’re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game."

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Dear Diablo Players,

Now that Diablo III has been out for two months, I would like to take a step back and discuss the launch, the feedback from the community, and talk about what the future holds for the game.

We’ve had an enormous amount of feedback since the launch. I speak for everyone at Blizzard when I say that we appreciate the passion and affection many of you have for the Diablo series. We truly believe “Every Voice Matters,” so I want to thank you for sharing your experiences in an effort to help us improve the game. Your support makes it possible for us to continue doing what we do, and we never take that for granted.

The launch week of Diablo III was memorable for many reasons — some positive, and some not so positive. We were thrilled that Diablo III had the biggest PC-game launch ever, surpassing the lifetime sales of Cataclysm (the previous record holder for biggest PC-game launch) in a matter of weeks. We’ve been floored by the response.

However, the launch had many challenges as well. It has always been difficult to forecast how many players we will have. With World of Warcraft, it was a challenge to handle the immediate demand when we launched back in 2004, and that was just in North America. We eventually expanded to other regions and reached nearly 5 million players by the end of the first year, and there were a lot of growing pains with that. However, we’ve never gone from 0 to more than 6 million players across multiple continents within a few days with a brand-new game. For Diablo III, we looked at historical sales for Blizzard games and other top-selling PC games and watched preorder numbers. We even upped our estimates to ensure we had additional capacity, or so we thought. In the end, it just wasn’t enough, and that is something we will work hard to conquer for future releases.

In response to the immediate and overwhelming demand for the game, the team worked around the clock to support all regions, increase capacity, ship additional hardware to our datacenters, and troubleshoot and fix bugs as they sprang up. While things have by and large been running smoothly for several weeks now, various game-related issues have come up that we have either already responded to or are continuing to investigate (such as the latency issue some of you are experiencing) and make adjustments for. Rather than address every subject individually, I’ll just say that even as we work to address or resolve current issues, it’s always possible that further issues will crop up. We hope that our actions in the past have demonstrated that above all else, we’re committed to delivering an awesome game experience, and we hope you’ll have faith that we will continue to keep that commitment and respond to any new or outstanding issues quickly.

We are not satisfied with breaking launch records; we want people to continue playing and enjoying Blizzard games for a very long time. The Diablo III team has made an epic, entertaining, and beautiful gaming experience. That being said, we know that it isn’t perfect. Our teams are working hard to improve the game balance, build on our design, and listen to what players are saying to make it the best game it can be.

You’ve seen some of that work already in patch 1.0.3, and you’ll see additional improvements with patch 1.0.4. On the game balance front, this update will contain changes designed to further deliver on the team’s goal of promoting “build diversity,” with buffs to many rarely used, underpowered class abilities. Another topic we’ve seen actively discussed is the fact that better, more distinct Legendary items are needed. We agree. Patch 1.0.4 will also include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably won’t be expecting.

We’re also working on a number of interface updates, including social improvements that will allow players to more easily view their friends’ achievements, more quickly join games, and more efficiently communicate with each other. In addition, we’ll be making updates to the auction house in the future to provide players with better information through tooltips and notices, offer improved search functionality, and more.

Regarding the real-money auction house, our primary goal for including this in the game was to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items. Black market trading sites can put accounts at risk and create many customer service challenges. We felt that the players themselves also deserved the opportunity to benefit from the extra loot they found, as opposed to having all of the benefit go to the black market/illegal trading organizations. We know the auction house isn’t perfect, but with your help and feedback, we’ll be able to continue making it a better experience for those who choose to use it. On the flipside, we are also committed to ensuring you have a great experience with Diablo III without feeling like the auction house is mandatory, which was never our intention. Thank you for all the feedback about that.

One other common topic we’ve seen in the forums is the always-connected experience, and the perception that the online requirement is nothing but an ineffective form of copy protection that has already been cracked. While we’ve never said that this requirement guarantees that there will be no cheating or game cracks, it does help us battle those problems (we have not found any fully functional cracks). More important to us is that the online requirement is critical for the long-term integrity of the game experience. I fully understand the desire to play Diablo III offline; however, Diablo III was designed from the beginning to be an online game that can be enjoyed with friends, and the always-online requirement is the best way for us to support that design. The effectiveness of the online elements — including the friends list and cross-game communication; co-op matchmaking; persistent characters that you can use by yourself, with others, and in PvP; and some of our customer support, service, and security components — is tied directly to the online nature of the game. These and other online-enabled features are essential to our design for Diablo III. That said, there are still improvements we believe we can make to expand the online experience and make co-op play even more rewarding, and this will remain one of our priorities moving forward. Overall, while there are some downsides to the online-only approach, I still believe this was the best long-term decision for the game.

I know many of you are also looking forward to patch 1.1, our PvP update, which will provide new experiences and give you a whole new way to apply the skills you’ve picked up while battling demons. This patch will also build on the social and auction house changes I mentioned above, and the team will continue to fix bugs and further tune game balance as well.

We’re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the “item hunt.” We’re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we’re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.

As always, we appreciate your candor and passion. Your constructive feedback and thoughts are valuable — they will continue to help us be a better company. I just want to reiterate that while we can’t claim to have ever shipped a perfect game, we are committed to supporting our games relentlessly and making improvements where we can. Thank you for your support.

Sheesh, blue posts have become increasingly more hostile lately. Not sure if it's a bad thing or a good thing. I mean, some of the questions they get asked are really stupid, but on the other hand, shouldn't they maintain some kind of higher ground, as they are the representatives?

Well, you know what they say? You can't educate pork and you can't stop the kiddies from QQing!! Think Blizz are just sick of them bitching now tbh, and with good reason. If I had to cope with whining little gits like that all the time I would have sent out a petition by now for the implementation of a law that prohibits stupid people from breeding!!!

No, I don't see what you're pointing out... How is implementing a new aesthetic feature for a class "giving players everything" or anywhere near similar to easy access gear? I'm glad you quit (for a stupid reason) too...

Then:

A) You're Blind.

or

B) You're a casual scrub who didn't play/liked vanilla WoW. People like you who shouldn't be in this game.

Those questions actually made me sick to my stomach. The wow player base is such a whinny bucket of shit now days. Cry about something, get a reasonable answer, grow more hostile, and reach for something else, that's a complete non issue. repeat.

I wonder if they know that they are coming of as petulant 9 year olds.

Seriously, they should really prevent him from posting anything. Just makes things worse. I really don't see how a message from the CEO is a good marketing tool in the gaming industry.

I dunno, worked out OK for Trion -- Their petulant "BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS" CEO-announcements managed to successfully sucker 200,000 of the more bitter ex-WoW players into clogging the pipes of Rift. I mean, if I had to compare the communities of WoW and Rift, Rift wins hands down for being a more throughly wretched pile of nonconstructive bickering/pandering I've ever seen.

And by "bitter" I mean, if anyone dares post any sort of constructive feedback anywhere on Trion forums, it's normally flooded out by 80 people going "IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT GO BACK TO WOW" in about a half hour before the thread gets locked.

I mean, at least half of the threads I see on the General forums for WoW are people joking about crap. Nearly all I normally see on Trion's Rift forums are just full of trolling and anti-WoW lol-ing.

And once again we have these supreme beings (hardcore raiders) who wants to be special and worshipped by us lesser players... Please find another game, cause your whining is getting tiresome after 7 years.

And once again we have these supreme beings (hardcore raiders) who wants to be special and worshipped by us lesser players... Please find another game, cause your whining is getting tiresome after 7 years.

Unfortunately they wont give up makes you think like that song MC Raiders from Myndflame they have no life.

I like how the blues are involved lately on the forums. And telling the "hardcore" crowd how it is.

You do realize what, "how it is" actually means right?

I swear, when I see someone post something negative about "Hardcores" I always read it as, "We don't like no fancy book learnin' 'round these parts, you best move along!"

/sadsadsad.jpg

The old way of progression meant the majority of players never got to see the last boss in an expansion, and we wanted to change that. Not only is it counter-productive for us to put out these exciting, epic encounters that only a fraction of the players will ever see while they’re current, it also leaves many players with a feeling that they missed out on the end-game.

I have always been in this "majority" and I have never cared one little bit! This is why so many players didn't understand "the video" even the damn Blues don't (wouldn't be surprised if that was GC himself). The WoW formula is Easy to Learn but Hard to Master, that's what made it so popular. How long is the "new" playerbase actually going to be happy with clearing all the content on patch day in LFR and then farming it for 6-8+ months until the next 1 night clear? Looking over at every single other player and seeing the exact same specs on gear?

We still can't have druids as tamed pets, but we'll be able to have them as mounts now

Originally Posted by Sanction

"World PvP and Dismounting Flying Players
They are still working on it, they haven't figured out how it should be working exactly.
This pretty much.

Right now we are looking into the possibility of adding one or more items that can dismount players, however this may change if we find a better way to do it. This is obviously something we want to be very careful about... it has to be done right."

My double killshot did alright as a dismounting device

---------- Post added 2012-07-20 at 10:48 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Fafnersbane

And once again we have these supreme beings (hardcore raiders) who wants to be special and worshipped by us lesser players...

Look, a communist ok, jk. Why can't they have something they worked for? And you aren't forced into worshipping, are you?

---------- Post added 2012-07-20 at 10:54 AM ----------

Originally Posted by greyghost

And by "bitter" I mean, if anyone dares post any sort of constructive feedback anywhere on Trion forums, it's normally flooded out by 80 people going "IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT GO BACK TO WOW" in about a half hour before the thread gets locked.

I mean, at least half of the threads I see on the General forums for WoW are people joking about crap. Nearly all I normally see on Trion's Rift forums are just full of trolling and anti-WoW lol-ing.

Well you can't do anything about it because wow is the most popular and often first mmo (lol, almost "wow 1st mmo" rift mem here) people play, so a lot of people come to rift from wow and their feedback often contains "but in other mmos read: wow you can". It's just like saying "hey why don't they use something here from that R&B video I saw yesterday"on a metal music fans' forum and wonder why are you blamed

B) You're a casual scrub who didn't play/liked vanilla WoW. People like you who shouldn't be in this game.

I take it you never learned debating skills? Calling people blind, casual scrubs, etc. doesn't make a good argument. I don't see your point either, but apparently you'd rather be calling names then explaining yourself.

Any chance to get a quick summary, or cliffnotes, on what the difference is between 'Non-Capture' pets, and Rare/Uncommon pets? I haven't looked into Pet Battles *AT ALL*, since I'm not hugely enthusiastic about playing Pokemon in WoW, but I am a companion pet collector. Hoping someone can explain the difference in terminology for the above 3 types, :X